Friday, March 11, 2016

Ads and games designed for men, advertised by women

As much as I hate to say this, I agree with what John Berger is saying. In modern society, it is very clear that men act and women appear. This can be seen through all platforms of advertisement and many other places. On TV, most ads that are meant for men have women who are the main object of attention. It is as if the thing they are trying to sell is not nearly as important as showing ever curve of the women, who is usually scantily dressed and holding or using what ever the company is trying to sell. I have seen many commercials where I didn't even know what the ad was about until the last five to ten second, because the company was so focused on glorifying the woman's body instead of the actual product. This goes to show that the company is not trying to sell physical benefits with their product, but rather create an image, which screams sexual dominance. With this product you will attract all the women your little heart desires. This is very prominent in Axe Lynx commercials. We all know Axe is a deodorant company, which focuses on the smell of their product and not the antiperspirant part. The new Lynx rise series has a slue of commercials, which aren't even focused on their product. All their commercials are seemingly based around a situation where a guy has a chance to get laid or do something sexual, but instead he does something stupid and misses out on that chance because of it. In one commercial, we see the man walk into his girlfriends house where we see a girl in extremely tight leggings bending over to get something in a cabinet. He walks up to her presuming she is his girlfriend and slaps her butt, immediately his girlfriend walks in and says "Ah I've seen you met my mom," while she is in a bra and has a loose robe on. The scene then cuts to him in the shower with a dreary look in his eyes as you hear a voice say something like "wake up and stay alert." The last five seconds of the commercial was about the product. Ninety percent of the commercial was glorifying women as sexual beings or as sex objects, rather than human beings. This can also be seen on billboard along the highway. On my way home from just about anywhere, I see ad upon ad where a woman is the main point.
This can not only be seen in commercials and ads, but also video games. In yet another form, men act and women appear. This is a very common theme throughout video games and the video game community. This appears both in the actual video games and in real like as well. In games, male characters are often portrayed as strong and important, not only that, but they are also usually covered in cool and decorated armor. The female counter parts how ever, are often portrayed as more supportive of characters. Although the female character can be strong or powerful, they often have very little armor or clothing. Producers and company owners display their female characters like objects to attract their targeted male audience. So, not only are the female characters portrayed as objects, they are also used to attract men instead of adding to the game or story line. In real life, female gamers or game enthusiasts often feel compelled to use their bodies to attract viewers or attention. For example, on twitch tv, a female gamer was playing a game called league of legends. Usually, players have a camera pointing at them so viewers can see them, but that picture is in the corner out of the way of the game. This particular girl enlarged her video feed so much that she covered one third of the screen. Not only was she covering the screen, but she was clearly and purposefully wearing a bright bra with a shirt that didn't cover even her bra. Although she was the one that chose to do this, she was compelled by the idea that the only way she could attract male viewers was showing off her body and in turn be viewed as an object. The point of this site is to display an array of different games, where people can watch their favorite players play their favorite game, with the major emphasis on the game play.

2 comments:

As I am not a big video game person, I saw your post as very insightful on that topic. I agree that when women are put in powerful roles in video games they usually portray unrealistic body types and expectations for women, and are often over sexualized. My question to you is how do we stop the objectification of women in media? How do we change video game production to empower women and put them in roles equal to men?

Great points. I wrote an article about similar topics as yours, and one of the things that I didn't put in my piece but I think would fit into yours is the way video games are advertised. If you look back at the earliest games, you see that advertisements showed boys and girls to an equal extent, but over time the ads began to exclusively target boys. I think that it's an important talking point because it shows how a lack of representation within media often mirrors a problem with the community, which I think you show quite well here.